Silverbrow on Food

Rosh Hashanah 2012

This is all feeling rather rushed.  

A week to go until Rosh Hashanah and I haven't really given what I'm going to make much thought.  I don't know which meals I'm making - lunch tends to be the biggie in our family - and there are two days of the Jewish New Year.  At the moment I may be doing just one, or both. Even if I only do one lunch, I still need to provide dinner for the family.  Light and simple will be the watchwords for dinner.

Chopped liver is certain to make an appearance - although I have to confess that last year it got binned just as people were loading it on to their forks.  It seemed I got a bit too eager, made it a day or so early and it had started to turn.  Not my kitchen memory.

The slow roast shoulder of lamb with honey and cider was popular last year.  I might reprise, but I was wondering if I can do something with pomegranates.  Figs crossed my mind as well, but perhaps they'd be just too sticky and sweet.

Rosh Hashanah this year runs from dusk on Sunday 17 September to dusk on Tuesday 19 September. That I have all day to prepare on Sunday makes me think I could use the opportunity and smoke a brisket. If I end up doing two days I could have smoked brisket on the first and use the left overs (assuming they exist) on the second for a West One Deli inspired chili.

Then again, bollito misto is easy and generous, salt beef is fun to make and I nailed the recipe last year. Oh, such decisions.  Ah, I've just remembered about Orbs of Joy.  They're a keeper.  Last year I talked about making baked beans.  I didn't.  Maybe this year.

I like to think I can be organised enough to make my apple, honey and crushed pepper sorbet again.  At the very least, I've sourced Indig's babka, the babka to end all babka's according to babka maven Dan 'Young & Foodish' Young.  

@thedelilondon @cookkosher @gefiltefest @silverbrow best chocolate babka i've found in london from indigs heimishe bakery, 37 oldhill st n16

— Daniel Young (@youngandfoodish) August 15, 2012

But I suppose I should bake my own.

On the baking theme, I've just started a sourdough starter and I was wondering about sourdough challa. We shall see.

I really should start planning and ordering and cooking.

Before I do, a happy and healthy new year to you all.

Not just a chicken bagel recipe

I was asked to write a piece for The Forward's Jew & The Carrot blog on my favourite Shabbat meal.  As I say in my piece, they tend to be fairly uninventive.  I wanted to write about chopped liver, but turns out they already had that covered.  So instead, I turned to an old standby that is a pre-dinner snack, rather than dinner itself, heaven forfend.  Perhaps it is somewhat denigrating to refer to it as a snack.  

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This was originally posted on The Jew & The Carrot.

Being from solid Ashkenazi stock, Friday night dinners invariably meant several ways with chicken: chopped, boiled and roasted. Although it was the least glamorous — the boiled chicken — that most excited me.

Chicken soup is a much loved dish and I’m always partial to a bowl or two, especially with my mother’s kneidlach. But it was the by-product that got my taste buds going.

I shouldn’t call it the by-product because the chicken is the main event, everyone just forgets about it and goes straight to the diluted version — what is soup if not a watery take on a solid? Chicken soup is genius in so many ways, but particularly because you can remove the primary ingredient and the soup is in no way diminished and the chicken tastes delicious.

I realized this curious fact early on in life and it led to a pleasurable pre-Shabbat ritual. Returning home from school I would sneak into the kitchen and sidle over to the large glass rectangular dish that contained the chicken. It would sit there looking somewhat wan. The skin had probably fallen off in the pot and other than boiling water and some aromatics, there was nothing to give it a hint of color. But I could readily overlook the aesthetic shortcomings. I was focused on a sandwich and no good sandwich will ever get mistaken for an oil painting.

Ideally the chicken would be warm but not hot and sitting in some broth that is mostly liquid, but at points is quivering into jelly. I would take aim at the breast, barely having to exert any pressure as the meat gladly parted company with the carcass.

Once enough chicken had been liberated I’d root around the bread bin to find a fresh sesame-seed bagel. Still with the merest hint of warmth from the bakers oven, they were nutty from the sesame, had a hint of sweet and salt and the all important features of a bagel, a chewy crust, but a forgiving center.

Split in two I would now be at a crossroads. The only one in this process. Either I would go down the purist route or I’d pimp my sandwich a bit. The purist route would be to pile the chicken onto the bagel, add a little squeeze of ketchup and generous dousing of chicken soup to ensure continued moistness, taking full advantage of a bagel’s rigidity.

The more outre version was to add half of a thinly sliced avocado, a dab of mayo and a couple of spritzes of Tabasco to the purist.

I like to think of this wonder as the kosher lobster roll. (I say that never having eaten a lobster roll.)

At this stage I was ready to retire to a quiet corner of the kitchen to contemplate the Shabbat meal that was just around the corner and ponder a question that had been vexing me for years: why was I never as hungry as everyone else when the chicken soup, chopped liver, roast chicken, roast potatoes and crumble made their post-Kiddush procession onto the table? I’m still wondering.

Makes 1 sandwich

• 1 breast chicken, taken from a bird recently used to make chicken soup
• 1 sesame bagel
• Tomato ketchup
• 1 tablespoon of broth from the chicken soup

If you’re going for the pimped version

• Half an avocado sliced
• Tabasco to taste
• Mayonnaise

Take a fresh bagel slice it. Ideally it is still a bit warm from the baker. If you don’t have anything that fresh, then put it in the oven to warm it. Don’t toast it. This is not a sandwich that requires crunch or crumbs.

Peel the breast away from the carcass. You can use knife and fork if you insist, but I prefer pulling it away with my fingers as it comes away in nice clumps. Remove any skin that is lingering on he chicken.

Take one bagel half and compose as you see fit. I tend to put ketchup first, then chicken, then avocado, mayo and Tabasco.

Pour the broth over the other half of the bagel so that the bread soaks up the liquid and close the sandwich.

Eat in quiet contemplation awaiting the arrival of Shabbat and your dinner.

Debating the future of kosher food in London

This was originally posted on The Jew & The Carrot.

Fressing and kibbitzing. Eating and talking. It’s what we Jews do so well, which is why on an unseasonably cold Sunday, the beautiful Ivy House, HQ of the London Jewish Cultural Centre, was heaving with over 500 people for this year’s Gefiltefest.

Setup in 2010, Gefiltefest — a British celebration of all things food and Jewish related — is now in its third year. Organized by the perennially cheerful Michael Leventhal, it is the ultimate Jewish food conference across the pond. Warmed by fragrant samosas topped with chili and yogurt made by a collective of North African women who call themselves Spice Caravan, people gathered for a mix of talks, panel debates and stalls more or less all focusing on the wonder that is food. Topics ranged from the silly — making edible portraits for kids — to the more serious like the panel debate I hosted on the future of kosher food.

The other panelists were all kosher restaurateurs, of one shade or another. Kenny Arfin runs Bevis Marks The Restaurant, one of London’s smarter kosher restaurants; Elliot Hornblass is one of the backers of The Deli West One, a New York deli style restaurant and Amy Beilin is the force of nature behind Kosher Roast, London’s first kosher pop-up (as far as I’m aware).

The first question I posed was whether it matters if there is a future for kosher food. With the Jewish population in the UK at under 300,000 realistically how many people are religious enough to care? And even if they do care, are there sufficient numbers to make it commercially viable.

The conclusion was that there is a future because even if the market is small, there are enough people who care passionately to keep it going. Where the panel had differing views was on the cause and cure of the current stasis in the market.

There was consensus that suppliers and religious kosher authorities don’t help the situation. One example given was chickens. There's only one major supplier in the UK for kosher chickens, meaning limited price competition. Similarly, there are only a handful of kosher certifying authorities and they err towards a conservative approach.

These are not uncommon complaints from kosher restaurateurs, but one area of difference among the panel was the role of the customer. Kenny felt that the customer invariably is conservative and expects traditional Ashkenazi fare when they eat out, reflecting views of what “Jewish” food is. At an event he recently catered, he tried to serve pareve cheese on top of hamburgers, but these were widely rejected.

Amy took a different line, she felt that her experience showed the kosher customer wants more innovation, that there is an expectation of good food, clever marketing and a decent drinks menu. Surly waiters and meat with the consistency of shoe leather — two features of sorely missed Blooms restaurant — are a thing of the past. If she’s right the kosher consumer is catching up with their secular cousins. At long bleeding last.

If questions from the floor are anything to go by, Amy’s view, supported by Elliot are a fair reflection the London Jewish community. Kosher keeping Jews are clamoring for their food to catch up with their values. It’s no longer good enough for food to be kosher — provenance, appearance and flavor have entered the kosher lexicon.

It will be interesting to see whether the market changes over the next year and by Gefiltefest 2013 we are talking about how the public has at long last got what it wants.

Kosher Roast

There are times when not knowing what you're doing is a very effective way of doing something well. Ignorance and naivety can be surprisingly powerful when combined with willfullness.  Proof of this was there to see on Sunday, with the launch of Kosher Roast.

I admire immensely what Amy Beilin, driving force behind Kosher Roast has achieved.  I have no doubt that setting up a pop-up is hellish: there is the sourcing; staffing; rent; cooking; health & safety; serving; washing up etc etc.  

The problems must be compounded if as in Amy's case you've never worked in a restaurant before.  But as problems go they are barely a flesh wound on the rampaging bull, on heat, in a farmyard of frigid cows, that are the requirements of being a kosher restaurant (even if it's not from one of the main kashrut authorities) and making the food taste great.

I should say at this stage that I was sitting down as more than just an intrigued but otherwise disinterested punter.  Over the last few months I've been giving Amy some thoughts.  I have no idea whether they were helpful or not, but in return for my bon mots, Amy said she wanted to buy me lunch. I decided it was a fair deal. (NB This is the first time I've ever accepted a complimentary meal whilst writing the blog. La Tasca, if you're reading, please don't let this give you false hope.)

As a reader with even the worst reading habits will know, I have a broad range of complaints on the rather niche subject of kosher food in London.  The quality is poor, the variety is limited, the costs are high, the staff are rude and passion is non-existent.

And then there is Kosher Roast.  

Starters were a tiny chicken and leek pie, accompanied by a scotch egg (turkey, not pork, natch) with a mustard mayo.  The farmyard conceit was carried through to the basket of hay that everything nestled in.  I've always wanted to make a scotch egg because deep fried sausage around a boiled egg sounds so very tasty.  I'm sure it's not the same as one made with a piggy sausage, but let's just accept the fact: this was a very tasty dish.  The coating had crunch, I'm pretty sure it was made from panko breadcrumbs, around a very moist and slightly spicy sausage mix.  Ideally, I'd have liked the egg to be a bit runny, like the ones I've spotted at The Bull & Last.  The chicken and leek pie was similarly good, although at little more than a mouthful, didn't leave much of a lasting impression.

The main course was roast beef, goose fat (imported from France because it's not sold here for some reason) roasted potatoes, mini-beets, kale and horseradish.  Again, it was very good.  The beef was nicely rare, wih great flavour, although I wouldn't have said no to a few crunchy bits.  I fear the gravy might have been thickened with corn-starch or something, but let's swiftly move on.  

The roast potatoes were almost as good as Silverbrowess's who is widely, and rightly, famed for her roasties.  The beets added a touch of sweetness, helped along by the impressively garlic-laden kale.  The yorkshire pudding was ok - it's always a bit tough making them without milk and I've never been the greatest fan anyway.  Overall, it was a lovely plate of food.

Dessert is rarely anything of note in kosher restaurants, because as with the yorkshire pud, there's the problem of dairy with meat. Amy came up with three little dark chocolate petit fours that were wrapped in cellophane and tied with a ribbon.  They were surprisingly tasty, in particular the gooey cookie and the cornflake crisp.

My gripes are minor and overall, we were served very good food.  I think it was up to the standards of many solid, local restaurants and reminded me of typical decent, pub/restaurant fare.  I have yet to have a meal that was of this high quality in any kosher restaurant in London.  

What I find almost more intriguing than the food, was the way she succeeded in getting the whole package right.  The venue was a little bit funky and edgy (interesting artwork in the men's loos for example).  There was a thoughtful drinks list, with good wines at reasonable prices and four house cocktails - unheard of in any other kosher restaurant.  

I'm well aware that catering a set menu for two days is very different to running a restaurant. The waitresses I'm sure were all friends.  Some suppliers would be difficult, but others would cut you some slack because they know this is a short-lived venture, more for fun than profit.  Despite those caveats Amy has set a new bar for kosher dining - which in some regards isn't all that difficult.  What Amy has achieved is doing something different with kosher food and has made a roaring success of it. For so long we've been limited to a cynical choice of poor quality, uninspiring food and iniquitous prices.

Kosher Roast has ably demonstrated that passion goes a long way.  I would hope that other restaurateurs who serve the kosher market will experience Kosher Roast.  They will notice the slightly alternative crowd, the brilliant branding and most importantly, the passion for what is on the plate and served to paying customers.  As that great arbiter of kashrut, Roy Castle liked to say, dedication's what you need.

Google Maps

Kosher Roast
The Shop,
75 Chamberlayne Road, 
Kensal Rise, 
London, NW10 3ND

The Deli West One

As AA Gill recently lamented (£) it is remarkably difficult to get a decent salt beef sandwich in London. As I regularly lament, it's remarkably difficult to get any decent kosher food in London, let alone a salt beef sandwich.  But a host of new openings suggest the worm might be about to turn.  Kosher Roast is a pop-up focused on great roast beef and Mishkins WC2 is the latest from the Polpo hothouse.

Whilst Kosher Roast brands itself as selling great food that is kosher, Mishkins is all about the Jewish/New York Deli experience.  The difference between kosher and Jewish is important. Kosher food basically means it’s got a religious stamp of authority, which for some is very important.  Jewish food is that which is culturally influenced by the fine canon of Jewish cuisine, whether Ashkenazi or Sephardi. It is complicated and if you want to really understand it and own one of the greatest cookbooks out there, then I strongly recommend Claudia Roden.

The others are yet to open but The Deli West One has now been open for a couple of weeks and it’s all about great kosher deli food.  Based on my visit, I think they’re getting into their stride.

Being a martyr to kosher food I tried a few things: the chopped liver; a salt beef sandwich and a pastrami sandwich. I also had some pickles. As I said after lunch, the meat was great, other elements less so.

Unlike some, I'm no maven of pastrami - it is a resolutely US dish - but I like to think that I know my salt beef. I also know what I like and both the pastrami and salt beef at West One were good.  The pastrami was moist, a bit spicy and a little bit sweet.  The salt beef was also moist - I think more so than the pastrami - but didn’t hide its salty light under a bushel.  They instinctively started to carve from a depressingly lean brisket, but a request for something with more flavour (read fat) resulted in a very good sandwich.

I was impressed with the chopped liver. Whilst I generally err towards slightly sweeter chopped liver - copious amounts of onions fried in schmaltz are the answer - theirs was much better than most commercial chopped liver.  That having been said, they garnish their liver with a red onion jam and crispy fried shallots which add texture and sweetness, so eaten together were very good.

The pickled cucumbers - half sours - were fine.  I think they’ll appeal to US diners but I’m less certain how the Brits will respond.  With our new greens and pickled dills, we’re used to vinegar based brines, rather than the salty ones our American cousins prefer.  It’ll be interesting to see how they go down over time.

Those were the good things.  On to the less so good.  Two items stuck out: the bread and the service. The bread was supplied by Grodzinski, a kosher baker that has been around for ever and frankly the bread tasted as if it was from their inaugural batch.  They call it rye, but actually it's caraway seed, rather than proper black rye bread.  It was horribly stale.  This is a fairly heinous crime given that much ink has been spilled as to whether what makes the sandwiches at places like Katz in New York so good is the quality of the meat or the quality of the bread.  I appreciate that at this stage it might be a tall order for West One to bake their own bread, but there are enough kosher bakers in London that they should be able to track down something much better than what they currently have - or get it made bespoke for them.

The service was also not the best.  I don't think this was an attempt to recreate the miserable sods who famously served at the now defunct Bloom's or the exceptionally rude staff at near-neighbour Reubens.  Rather, I got the impression they were very stressed.  Understandable as it's still early days and they seemed to be having problems with their till.  I got chatting to one of the owners who seemed a thoroughly nice chap, but it was the staff, the guys and girls on the floor who seemed a bit flummoxed.

They’re about to face stiff competition from Mishkins for attention of those who aren’t worried about whether they keep kosher or not but want deli.  Whilst I generally love their restaurants, the Polpo guys appear to be colonising London a bit (I'd love to know how they've managed to roll out so many successful restaurants so quickly) and I’m supporting the under dog in this fight.

I don't necessarily come to this review unbiased.  I want them to do well.  I want all restaurants to do well, more good food and more people employed are worthy goals. But I really want there to be a great kosher restaurant in London and at the moment West One is our best hope.

Google Maps

The Deli West One
51 Blandford Street,
London, W1U 7HJ,
UK

What others think

Youngandfoodish - the salt beef sandwich...though nicely rimmed with fat, was a tad tough and dry and the rye was limp, with no oomph in the middle and little chew-and-tear in the crust.  The hot dog was plump and meaty, with the right quotient of garlic and what tasted like paprika.

Salt beef

Better salt beef should be more widely available.  It is a cheap cut of meat ooh how age of austerity, that doesn't take much hard work, ideal because I just don't have any time to cook and yet current offerings are pretty mediocre.

True, hope might be on the horizon, West One Deli for those that keep kosher (and assuming they get round to opening, there have been interminable delays) and Mishkin's from the irrepresable team behind Polpo et al for those that don't.  

So limited supply has left me trying to perfect my salt beef recipe for sometime and I think I've now done it.  Using the recipe below, I ended up with some of the most delicious salt beef I've ever had the privilege to taste.  It is a bit saltier than commercial salt beef but far from too salty - it gives a pleasant tang, helped no doubt by the aromatics.

I feel heretical saying it, but my efforts were no thanks to two of my heroes.  My first attempt was a salty disaster - the only time that the now veggie Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has let me down.  I then read Claudia Roden's seminal work on Jewish cookery, but was uninspired by her recipe, especially the rather amorphous 'pickling spices' she proposes. 

I moved on to Fergus Henderson at the suggestion of a commenter on the blog.  I blithely followed him, until I received another comment on the blog saying his brine was far too salty.  Pah, I thought, what does this naif though compared to Henderson.  

I then re-read Henderson and realised he was recommending the same concentration of cure for a chicken as for salt beef.  This seemed a bit wrong and perhaps Nick Loman was worth listening to.

So I pimped Henderson's recipe, or rather I wimped out and watered it down.  For 4 days I had a 15% cure and for 1 day I had a 7.5% cure.  I suppose you could make life easier by just going for a 13.5% cure or 540g of salt to 4l of water.  (These percentages refer to the quantity of salt to water in the cure, where water is 100%.)

I didn't use salt-petre and didn't think it was any the worse for it.  The reason for using salt-petre is to ensure the beef doesn't lose its pink colour as a result of the brining process.  I didn't find the colour a problem.  The inside was brown, a bit like the centre of smoked brisket - rather delicious actually.

So here's what I did.

Please note that in total this recipe takes 5 days to brine and is cooked on the 6th day - although most of that time a lump of meat is sitting in some salty water and does not require much work from you. Just don't try to make it a few hours before guests arrive.

You will need a large non-metallic container to cure the meat in.

3.5kg brisket - make sure your butcher leaves some of the fat on it.

4 day brine

• 400g caster sugar
• 600g sea salt
• 12 juniper berries
• 12 cloves
• 12 black peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves
• 4l water

5th day brine

• 4l water

Cooking the beef

• 2 bay leaves
• Bunch of thyme
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 celery stick, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic

Bring all the ingredients for the brine to the boil.  Then allow to cool thoroughly.

Once cooled, pour the brine over the beef.  Make sure the beef is fully submerged, you may well need to weigh it down.

Leave it for 4 days.

On the 5th day, add a further 4l of water.

A note on curing & refrigeration: I don't refrigerate mine whilst it's curing because this is a preserving process afterall.  I leave it in a nice cool part of the house.  If you do refrigerate, bear in mind it will slow the curing process down, so for the same flavour you'll need to make it more concentrated or brine for longer.

On the 6th day - cooking day - remove the beef from the brine and rinse well under running water.

Put the beef in a pot with herbs and vegetables and cover with fresh water.  Cook it for about 3-3.5 hours.  You want it to be a rolling boil and by that I mean: the water's gently bubbling rather than furiously splashing for most of the cooking time.

The kosher sausage collective

Do you want to buy some kosher sausage casings with me?

I ask because I do again and the quantities I need to buy them in are enormous, much more than I can use.

The hardest part it seems of making kosher sausages is sourcing the cases.  Until earlier this year, Devro manufactured the only kosher sausage casings that I've ever been able to get hold of.  However, they no longer make them because they cannot source the hides they need to make the collagen casings.

I've been able to track down a caddy of these casings and rather than see three quarters going to waste, I'd like to split them with other like minded cooks, who want to make sausages.  

If you are interested, then reply in the comments below or email or tweet me.

A final thought, what on earth are butchers going to do when the casings finally run out?  I rang four suppliers that, according to a helpful gentleman at Devro, might still have some stock.  Only two still had any casings in and both of those pointed out there wasn't much stock left. 

With a sausage shortage looming, the winter surely only days away, the only answer must be for us to make our own.  Away to your mincers.